


Road Trip: All You Had To Do Was Ask

by XenophonSpeaks



Series: Erejean Week [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Road Trips, frienemies to lovers, tw for mild panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3640326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XenophonSpeaks/pseuds/XenophonSpeaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jean finds out he has an interview halfway across the country and discovers Eren is the only one available to drive him, he's pretty sure it's going to be the worst three days of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Trip: All You Had To Do Was Ask

**Author's Note:**

> Day One of Erejean Week: Road Trip
> 
> I did something kind of weird with this in that I used real places as the backdrop for their trip. I'm from the Midwest and had friends who went to OU (though I didn't go there myself). I've also been on a road trip of my own to Denver. Basically everything in this story is based off of real events (or at least places), which was my intended goal in writing this. Hopefully it's as much fun for you to read as it was for me to write.

It hadn’t really been a pleasant notion for either of them. When Jean found out he had a job interview in Denver, he had immediately realized the logistics of getting there would be a problem. Out of everyone he was friends with at Oklahoma State, it seemed like fate had conspired to see to it that no one would be able to give him a ride. Virtually none of them had cars to begin with, and of the three of them that did, Reiner’s car was more likely to be found in a state of ill repair (for which he rarely had the money to get it fixed) and Marco had a wedding to go to somewhere in Illinois that same weekend.

That left only one person with a car. The very thought of it had made his skin crawl.

“Please explain to me again why you don’t have a car of your own,” Eren grumbled disdainfully in the whirring quiet somewhere before they’d even passed the Oklahoma border into Kansas. It was unusually hot out for the end of April, and both of them had the windows down in an effort to keep cool as Eren’s air conditioning unit had apparently died the previous summer. Jean wanted to blame being so cranky on being uncomfortable due to the heat, but he was fairly certain the main source of his discomfort was having to share a vehicle with one Eren Jaeger and no one else for at least ten hours—and knowing he’d have to do the same thing once they started their journey back to Norman, Oklahoma, a couple of days from now.

“I already told you,” Jean replied tersely toward the open window, “I’ve never needed one. I always had Marco to drive me around in high school, and since we both ended up at OU that never really changed.” He left out the fact that the one who ended up driving him places the most had actually been his mother. He didn’t really feel like catching shit for that one, either.

Eren mumbled something vaguely rude which Jean graciously chose to ignore and awkward silence descended once again on the car.

They had tried to convince other people to come with them. Mikasa had a basketball game to be at and as a star player her presence was kind of integral to the team, and Armin had been insistent that he needed to spend this weekend studying for finals. Finals weren’t for at least two more weeks, Jean had tried to argue. Armin had just smiled in a way that made Jean feel like he knew something Jean didn’t and continued to refuse.

Jean had even tried Bert, Reiner, and Annie but it was their three year anniversary and they had something special planned. Eren had tried to reason with them that if they’d been together this long then it couldn’t hurt for them to celebrate the following weekend instead, earning him the silent treatment from all three for the next several days.

Jean had even stooped so low as to ask Connie and Sasha, despite knowing that the car ride would probably be complete chaos for the entire journey if they tagged along, but the two of them were required by the university to spend that entire week doing community service after they were caught trying to scale campus buildings for “parkour practice.” Ymir had almost agreed but had finally managed to convince the girl she’d been pining after for over a year to go on a date and had backed out at the last minute. Jean couldn’t really blame her; Krista was a catch by anyone’s standards and likely deserving of Ymir’s full attention.

So that left just the two of them. In this awkward silence. For the next nine or so hours.

“Can we turn on some music or something?” Jean finally asked, already reaching for the stereo. He had intended to turn on a radio station but somehow ended up kicking on whatever CD was in the CD player.

Immediately the sounds of Starships by Nicki Minaj filled the car.

Jean turned to give Eren a disbelieving look. Eren’s fingers twitched reflexively against the steering wheel as if he was fighting the urge to turn it off. He ended up clenching his fists around the steering wheel instead, his face turning an incredible shade of red. Jean waited for him to say something but when Starships faded and Superbass began to play it eventually became clear that that wasn’t going to happen.

“… is this Mikasa’s mix CD?” Jean ventured, not entirely sure why he was attempting to give Eren an easy way out. This would be the perfect kind of thing to use for blackmail ammo, and yet something about Eren’s refusal to comment was throwing him off.

“No,” Eren said, significantly less red by this point. In fact he was looking a lot less embarrassed and a lot more resigned. “It’s mine.”

Silence. That was apparently the only explanation he felt he had to offer.

“Since when the hell are you a fan of Nicki Minaj?” Jean bit out, attempting to redirect his own discomfort. “That’s kind of gay, Jaeger.”

As he watched Eren’s face harden into an angry look he recognized as being a precursor to a fight. He braced himself for Eren to defend his sexuality and masculinity, already thinking up comebacks and rude remarks as if it were second-nature.

“Maybe I’m kind of gay, Jean,” Eren said slowly. “Is that a problem? Or do you want to walk the rest of the way to Colorado?”

Despite the heat Jean felt like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water in his face.

“I—what? N-no, no, it’s fine. It’s, um,” Jean trailed off, feeling like the biggest piece of shit in the world. He was suddenly beginning to realize that he and Eren were a _lot_ more similar than he had ever realized.

He spent the next several minutes trying to figure out how to fix things, because despite the stereo playing, things were _definitely_ more awkward than they had been before. Eren looked tense and ready for a fight, as though he expected Jean to lash out at him at any moment.

Beez In The Trap started playing. Jean felt like he had a pretty good idea of how to bridge the gap he had somehow managed to create, and all it really required was that he sacrifice what level of dignity he had tried to maintain whenever Eren was around.

He started off quiet at first, but once Eren picked up on what was happening and gave him a disbelieving look, Jean reached over to turn up the volume, shouting along to the lyrics as only someone who has listened to a song far too many times can do. He felt like his face was probably reminiscent of a tomato, but he didn’t stop, and when Eren gave him the most relieved grin he’d ever seen and began to sing along too, he decided it was probably worth it.

 

Several hours later found them in a strange sort of peace that previously had never existed between them. They still exchanged barbs but to Jean it felt like all the venom had been taken out of their interactions. After they’d played through the entirety of the first CD, Eren had told Jean to pick something new, grabbing a large CD case from somewhere in the back seat for Jean to flip through. This sparked a long conversation over bands, albums, and music in general that ended up lasting them till they were just outside Salina, Kansas. They had a lot in common as far as musical taste was concerned, but Jean was adamant that Eren had to be a complete moron not to appreciate the wonderful music of Rihanna.

They eventually decided to take a break from driving and grab some food. Eren wanted McDonald’s but Jean was staunchly opposed to eating from any place that served “food barely identifiable as actual meat.” It wasn’t too hard to convince him after Jean agreed to pay for his meal, which Eren said was only fair considering he was doing him a big favor by driving him around in the first place.

And that was how they ended up at an Applebee’s.

“I don’t know what I want,” Eren mumbled, kicking the leg of the table distractedly. Jean tried not to stare as Eren took a sip from his Shirley Temple, staining his lips faintly in a way that was making Jean painfully aware that he’d never fully appreciated how round and juicy Eren’s lips seemed to be. “I want a steak but I also want this fiesta lime chicken thing.”

“Well why don’t we do the 2 for $20 deal and get both. It comes with an appetizer, too, so it’s plenty of food. We can just share everything,” Jean said, flushing after a moment because that sounded like a very _date_ sort of thing to do and what if Eren thought that was weird. “I mean, uh. If you’re okay with that, I guess.”

Eren gave Jean a long stare, face unreadable, before finally taking another long sip from his straw. “It doesn’t bother me as long as it doesn’t bother you.”

“It’s fine with me as long as you quit kicking the table, you actual five-year-old.”

By the end of the meal they had somehow veered into a very heated debate about the politics of Skyrim, and to Jean’s amazement they weren’t fighting despite not agreeing (Jean was a die-hard Imperial while Eren was a firm believer in the Stormcloak cause). Jean tried not to be too awed by the way Eren was seemingly able to argue passionately about anything he believed in, even a goddamn video game, while also trying and failing to stop looking at his mouth as he finished off his third Shirley Temple.

As Jean finished paying for their meal, he finally admitted to himself that he was possibly developing a very ill-advised crush. He also admitted to himself that he was no longer sorry they were the only ones on this trip, too.

 

Everything was strange after they left Applebee’s. Towns became small and few and far between, and fields of crop dominated the landscape. Sometimes there was nothing as far as they could see besides the stretch of road ahead of them, the wind blowing through the windows to ruffle their hair fondly. Jean felt comfortable, like they were in a place in time and space that was inherently different from the normal and therefore safe somehow.

That led to a lot of strange questions and honest answers between them for the rest of the way through Kansas and well into Colorado. They both talked about their families, about where they had each grown up and what their hometowns were like compared to OU. Jean even went so far as to tell a few embarrassing stories about himself as a kid, and the laughter Eren rewarded him with seemed like a fair trade for the shame the stories caused him.

The farther from home they drove, the stronger the feeling of companionship between them seemed to become. They had always considered themselves friends, albeit reluctantly at times, but now Jean felt like he and Eren were actually really _being_ friends for the first time.

The mountains of Colorado left both of them in a state somewhere between speechless and poetic. Neither of them had ever really seen mountains before, and what little they had seen were more like hills compared to the Rockies. Eren talked incessantly about wanting to hike all over them, something about how doing so would constitute real freedom; Jean told him he was an idiot and that it seemed like too much effort. For his part, Jean could only wax poetic about how beautiful and green everything seemed, to which Eren replied Jean was going to end up a starving artist someday if he wasn’t careful.

By the time they rolled into Denver on a Friday evening, the sun was already close to setting. Jean’s interview was the following day sometime around noon, and they were set to return back to Oklahoma on Sunday. That gave them a full day to play around tomorrow and a decent chunk of the evening tonight.

“What do you want to do?” Eren asked. “Check into your hotel?”

“Yeah. Then I want to grab some food. I’m starving.”

“We had a big lunch. I don’t know why you’re so hungry.”

“You ate way more than half of the food, you asshole.”

Eren rolled his eyes. “It’s not my fault you were spacing out for most the meal.”

Jean couldn’t meet Eren’s gaze. He didn’t really have much to say to that.

They pulled onto a street near the outskirts of town that seemed to be filled with nothing but hotels. After locating theirs, Eren pulled the car up to the front office and told Jean he’d wait there while he checked in. A few short minutes later and they were already unloading what little they’d brought from the car as the sun set over the mountains.

“Hurry up, this is heavy,” Eren said from beside the door to their room, his suitcase clearly resting on the concrete beside him.

“You’re not even holding anything,” Jean mumbled as he fiddled with the key in the lock.

They both pushed into the room eagerly and froze at the same time.

“… You told me we were supposed to have two beds. That’s one bed, Jean.”

“We _were_ supposed to have two beds. Hold on, I’ll just—I’m sure they just made a mistake or something, I’ll be right back.”

Several minutes later, Jean came wandering back from the office. They hadn’t made a mistake, apparently.

Jean flopped down in the arm chair resting in the corner with an indignant huff. “This is the room the company I’m interviewing for booked for me. There are no more two bed rooms available here, and if we go somewhere else, we’ll have to pay for it ourselves.”

Eren groaned, rubbing at his forehead. They were both well aware that they didn’t have the funds for another room.

After a moment, Eren seemed to rally. “It’s fine. I can sleep on the floor. I even brought my own pillow with me. I’ll just ask the hotel staff to bring me some extra blankets and it’ll be fine,” he finished, waving his hand around as though that would clear the tension. Jean noticed Eren’s face was flushed, and he seemed unable to meet Jean’s eyes.

It occurred to Jean that after today in the car, Eren probably thought he would be weirded out by sharing a bed together. Jean tried to ignore the part of his brain that was overwhelmingly pleased rather than bothered by the idea.

“What? No,” Jean said brusquely, “you’re not sleeping on the floor. That’s stupid, especially since you had to drive all day. If anyone should be on the floor, it’s me,” he said, and when Eren opened his mouth to protest Jean cut him off, “and I’m not sleeping on the floor, either.”

There was a moment of silence in which Jean thought Eren was doing a marvelous impersonation of a fish.

“We’re both adults. For christssake, we can share a damn bed. It’s not a big deal.” Jean leaned over to pick up Eren’s pillow off the floor, tossing it onto the bed with what he hoped was an air of finality.

“You sure?” Eren asked hesitantly after a moment. “I mean, like, maybe you didn’t understand me earlier in the car, but—“

“Eren, I totally understood you. Quit acting like it’s such a big deal.”

Eren seemed to accept this, though he still looked a bit awkward. Jean clicked on the TV in the corner of the room to diffuse the silence before standing and grabbing a jacket out of his bag. “Let’s go do something. I’m still hungry and I’m sure there’s something fun to do in town.”

Reluctantly, Eren started flipping through the little booklet lying on the table of suggested outings in town, sitting down heavily on the corner of the bed. After a few minutes he seemed to brighten up. “There’s a comedy club just down the street a ways. We could go to that if you want. It says they’ll serve you dinner during the show.”

“Perfect,” Jean said, snatching the booklet from Eren and heading for the door.

The Comedy Club turned out to be in a fancy little corner of town just down the way from their hotel. Both Jean and Eren were underdressed but neither of them really gave a damn, each of them wandering the streets as if they owned the place. Despite their poor sense of style –the man in line behind Eren was wearing a suit and tie while Eren sported ripped jeans and a hoodie, Jean noted—they were still allowed into the club. Their seats ended up being at the end of the front row on the upstairs balcony, affording them a great view and a little more space away from the crowd.

Bored and again plagued by the idea that what they were doing felt very much like a date, Jean spent most of the time before the show pointing out people seated below the balcony and making outlandish and rude remarks about them.

“That man is clearly wearing a wig. It’s not even the same color as the rest of his hair.” Eren tried and failed to keep the smile off his face, which only encouraged Jean to continue.

Not one to be outdone, Eren eventually joined in, attempting to outdo Jean’s wild accusations with some of his own. “That guy has absolutely no eyebrows. He can’t even be assed to draw some on or something. Probably lost them in an incredibly tragic accident.“

Jean leaned in close for a better look and definitely not as an excuse to smell Eren’s shampoo because that would just be weird and creepy “Yeah, along with his sense of fashion because _what the hell even is that hat_ , are you kidding me right now? Who the fuck wears a blood orange hat with that suit?” By the time the show began, the two of them were in tears, Eren wheezing the words “blood orange” against the table at irregular intervals while Jean rolled around in his chair, shaking with silent laughter.

Miraculously, they managed to avoid being thrown out despite being told to quiet down on two separate occasions. They both became distracted once the show started, however. Jean tried not to notice when they bumped hands as they reached for food during the performance. Two hours later, they both walked out of the door in high spirits, stomachs full of the joy of shared food and a couple of beers.

“I’ve never been to one of those before. It was pretty great,” Eren commented, kicking rocks as they walked toward the car.

“It was,” Jean agreed. He silently added that his favorite part had been before the show even began, because after several years of bickering and little else, it was weird to find himself fully enjoying Eren’s company.

 

Their sleeping arrangements were a lot less eventful than Jean expected them to be. They were both so exhausted from the travel that by the time they got back to the hotel room they were dead on their feet. Jean went into the bathroom to change and brush his teeth (definitely not because he wanted Eren to think he had fresh and potentially enticing breath) and by the time he came out Eren was already passed out on one half of the bed.

Shrugging, Jean collapsed on his own side, falling asleep himself almost immediately.

The next morning, Jean awoke to his phone alarm beeping from where he’d dropped it next to his pillow. Turning it off blindly, he blinked into the pale light of the room, turning his head once he remembered he wasn’t actually alone.

Eren was still asleep. Jean tried very, very hard not to laugh, burying his face back into his pillow, because while most people looked angelic and peaceful as they slept, Eren looked absolutely horrible. His mouth was open, his hair sticking up in random directions, his legs and arms sprawled across the bed as though he were trying very hard to become a starfish while he slept.

“Hey, asshole,” Jean groused, voice still heavy with sleep, “Get back on your own damn side of the bed. And quit drooling, what the fuck, that’s not even your pillow.” He gave Eren’s shoulder a gentle shove.

Eren jerked awake, blinking wildly before finally glaring in Jeans direction, hiking up the covers and rolling away to the far edge of the bed.

“Uh-uh, no, you have to get up too. You’re driving me to this stupid thing,” he said, poking at the pile of blankets. Jean heard something that sounded faintly like “fuck you” and “five more minutes.”

Rolling out of bed, Jean stood up to stare at the bed. Eventually deciding that if he had to be awake and suffering then so should Eren, he grabbed the corner of the sheet and quickly yanked it up and away from Eren and onto the floor.

He was at least smart enough to not want to deal with the aftermath of a tired and pissed off Eren Jaeger, so he immediately ducked into the bathroom and locked the door. He could hear Eren swearing loudly and stumbling around the room. Jean looked up to find himself grinning in the mirror. Somehow all he could think was that he felt oddly content.

 

“Calm the fuck down, you’ll do fine,” Eren said for the fifth or sixth time, his voice falling flat with repetition.

“I am calm,” Jean hissed, leg bouncing rapidly.

Eren rolled his eyes. “Of course you are.”

As they pulled up to a large office building at least ten stories tall, Jean wondered to himself if he was having an actual panic attack. He sort of felt like he was about to die.

Eren parked the car, shutting it off before turning to Jean. “You have to go in now.”

“I know,” Jean said from where he was glued to the car. “I’m going.”

He totally wasn’t going. The only going he was about to do was maybe die. He was feeling pretty lightheaded. He realized he was starting to hyperventilate. That didn’t seem good.

“Hey,” Eren said sharply. Jean abruptly turned to look at him, finding Eren’s face a lot closer than usual. He distracted himself from his impending death by focusing on attempting to identify what color Eren’s eyes actually were.

Two hands fell on his shoulders, giving him a good shake before squeezing reassuringly. “You are ok. You’re going to be fine. I’ll wait right here for you, and you’ll come out and tell me you did great and then we can go and climb on some rocks or something.”

Jean nodded dumbly, Eren’s hands finally dropping as Jean reached for the door handle. He got out of the car slowly, feeling strangely focused. It wasn’t that he wasn’t nervous anymore, but it was somehow more manageable now.

As Jean walked into the building, he felt better knowing someone would be waiting for him no matter how it turned out. That, if nothing else, was reassuring.

 

“I told you it would be fine,” Eren said for what Jean thought was at least ten times too many.

“Yes, we’ve established that you’re the biggest know-it-all in this entire state,” Jean said, giving Eren a light shove as they drove back to their hotel room that evening.

After the interview, which went almost entirely without a problem (Jean had managed to stumble over his words only twice), they had decided to drive further south to a town called Colorado Springs. Eren had apparently spent most of Jean’s interview looking up places to hike or sight-see and declared that they were going to visit some place called Garden of the Gods. Jean couldn’t really find it in himself to complain considering it turned out to be the coolest thing he’d ever seen. After they had finished wandering around among the huge jutting rocks and colorful landscape, they ended up visiting a nearby cave, taking a “haunted tour”. While Jean couldn’t say he really cared much about ghosts, he wasn’t too upset by Eren’s unexpected skittishness, which often resulted in him pressing close behind Jean as they walked, Eren clinging uncertainly to his shirt when it became particularly dark.

“Well, what do you want to do now?” Eren asked through a yawn, Jean following suit soon after.

“How about pizza? I’m pretty tired. I sort of just want to chill.”

“Yeah, panicking over nothing like that will really take it out of you.”

“I am seriously going to hit you, Eren.”

Once they arrived back at their hotel room, they ended up getting two large pizzas from Dominoes because neither could agree on toppings and both insisted they were hungry enough to eat a whole pizza. They watched the first Kill Bill movie on TV as they ate propped up against the headboard of the bed.

The pizza boxes were empty by the time Kill Bill Vol. 2 started playing immediately following the end of the first movie. Jean and Eren both looked mildly pained, competition between the two having spurred them on to eat the last slices of their respective pizzas in their entirety, despite having been full long before that.

One minute Jean was watching Uma Thurman train with the wizened Pai Mei and the next he woke up two hours later, an unfamiliar movie playing while Eren leaned heavily on his shoulder. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he quickly realized Eren was also asleep; his snoring was probably what woke Jean up.

The position wasn’t a comfortable one for Jean, and Eren was likely to wake up with a sore neck, yet he couldn’t really find it in himself to wake him up and move him. It wasn’t that Eren was particularly endearing while asleep (well, maybe in some really weird way he was, if you found really goofy-looking to be endearing) and it wasn’t that he necessarily wanted Eren to get some quality rest. It was simply that this afforded Jean some time to think.

For one, he considered that he and Eren were having a surprisingly good time. Jean had always found Eren to be an interesting person, if not an incredibly stubborn and annoying one, but he was beginning to realize that he’d never really made an effort to get to know Eren. Jean had learned more about Eren in the last two days than he had in the last two years, and it made him feel guilty for not having made more of an effort before now.

He also considered that he had always found Eren attractive, though he had never actually considered that obtaining Eren’s affection was even possible. He had settled for arguing and bickering because some part of Jean’s mind worked on the level of, “If I can’t make you happy then I’ll do the exact opposite.” Jean supposed he was probably a pretty petty person to try and piss someone off constantly just to keep their attention.

Eren shifted slightly beside him, his breath fanning along Jean’s arm rhythmically.

Jean was also finding Eren’s _physical_ presence to be a shocking comfort. He felt stupid for being so upset when this whole road trip had started because now he found himself distantly dreading its end. He actually liked having Eren all to himself.

Jean decided then that he definitely had a crush. It felt nice to admit it to himself. At the same time, it also made his stomach knot because he wasn’t exactly sure what to _do_ about it. He wasn’t even sure if Eren knew he was into guys since the only person Jean had tried to date in college had been Mikasa, and that hadn’t worked out for a variety of reasons (namely that while Jean was interested in both men and women, Mikasa didn’t seem to be interested in anyone of any gender in a capacity beyond that of friendship).

Frustrated, he eventually jostled Eren awake. “Hey. Come on, get in the covers. Let’s sleep.”

Eren barely seemed coherent, stripping off his pants and shirt before flopping back on the bed and wiggling into the covers. Jean moved the empty pizza boxes off the end of the bed and by the time he’d gotten himself ready to sleep, Eren was already snoring again.

Jean gave him a glare, silently climbing into bed. How dare Eren sleep so soundly through his emotional crisis. How dare the _cause_ of his emotional crisis sleep through his emotional crisis. Rude.

He couldn’t fall back asleep, his mind refusing to shut down in the darkness of the room. Jean rolled to lay on his stomach, a position which usually helped him fall asleep with ease. After a few minutes Eren rolled over, starfished across the bed again. Jean directed an offended stare at Eren’s hand as it landed on his own pillow. After a moment of hesitation he reached out and caught it with his own, feeling Eren squeeze back reflexively in his sleep.

Jean smiled, closing his eyes. He felt himself warm pleasantly and was asleep within moments.

 

Jean woke up early the next morning to Eren stuffing his belongings back in his bag. He looked freshly showered and wide awake. Jean tried to suppress his intense feelings of envy as he groaned and rolled over to look at the time on his phone.

“What the fuck, Eren. It’s six in the morning.”

“I wanted to get an early start on driving. Besides, early birds gets all the hot water,” Eren said with a smug look.

“You asshole.” Jean stood up and stumbled his way into the bathroom to get ready.

By seven in the morning they had checked out of the hotel and were on the road back to Oklahoma.

“I’m going to miss the mountains,” Jean sighed, looking longingly out the window as the sun rose, casting everything in hues of gold.

“Well, if you get the job you’ll probably get to see them again soon, right?”

“It’s just for an internship.”

Eren gave him a sardonic glance. “Pretty sure that still counts.”

Jean didn’t dignify that with a response, yawning widely instead.

“Did you not sleep last night or something? You seem really tired,” Eren observed.

Jean felt his face heating up but did his best to seem nonchalant. “Eh. I didn’t sleep very well.” He felt Eren’s gaze on him, clearly waiting for a better explanation. “You almost punched me in your sleep trying to imitate a starfish, you bed-hog.”

Eren snorted. “At least I’m not a leech in my sleep.” At Jean’s incredulous look, Eren grinned. “I woke up this morning to you half on top of me— _and_ you were holding my hand.”

Feeling as though his face had caught fire, Jean looked out the window, hand propped against the glass and face pressed into his palm in an effort to hide his expression. “Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Eren said, shaking his head. “It’s not like you meant to.”

Realizing this was probably the best opportunity he was going to get but also knowing he was going to sound like a complete creep, Jean pressed his face further into his hand.

“I did. Mean to, I mean. With the hand thing, anyway.”

Despite the tense silence, Jean couldn’t bring himself to look over at Eren.

“You meant… to hold my hand?” Eren asked slowly, disbelief evident in his voice.

“… Possibly,” Jean groused after a moment.

Eren made a noise that sounded pained. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Because if you’re making a joke, Jean, I swear to god—“

“I’m not joking, you asshole! Jesus,” Jean swore, running a hand through his hair, “Is that really so hard to believe?”

“I’m not sure how to respond to that,” Eren said honestly with an audible swallow.

“Look.” Jean turned to face him, figuring that he might as well go all out since he was beyond the point of no return. “I’ve sort of had a thing for you ever since I met you. I just didn’t know you were actually… available,” he finished lamely. “And after the car ride the other day it sort of got worse. Like, if you’re not interested that’s fine, but I’m not kidding around.”

After a moment he turned to face the window again, burying his face in his hand once more. “I am sorry I grabbed your hand without your permission, though. That was kind of creepy.”

The quiet felt tense, Jean waiting for Eren to reject him or maybe even kick him out of the car. He was startled when Eren started laughing.

“You’re such an idiot,” Eren said, reaching across the center console to grasp Jean’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “All you had to do was ask, you know.”

Breathing a deep sigh of relief, he gave Eren’s hand a shaky squeeze. Yeah, some part of him probably did know that.

The quiet between them no longer felt awkward or tense. Jean had no idea what was going to happen once they got back or whether or not this meant they were officially even dating.

He smiled, watching the sun as it continued to rise, the feel of Eren’s hand in his own filling him with warmth. He supposed they had the next ten hours or so to figure that out.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to be tumblr buddies? Come and say hello. xenophonspeaks.tumblr.com


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